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Yet -- eventually -- the track was ultimately made available as a free NYA BD Live download. And now the song can be downloaded as a MP3 for those without BluRay.

So end of story right? Oh, no.

It seems that some folks over at Glorious Noise can't resist an opportunity to get a good dig in. Here's GloNo's Jake Brown:

Glad it's out there and available, but it's a bit of a bummer that those of us who opted to purchase the CD or DVD version of the Archives will only get to hear this song in lo-fi, compressed MP3 or AAC format. I know, I know, we got what we bought, caveat emptor, but stuff like this just makes Neil look like a greedhead."

Normally, we wouldn't bother to dignify the comment. But this seems to be a recurring theme of late. Like this ranting comment about Neil having wronged a "fan".

It seems that every release and tour has been questioned based on Neil Young's financial motives. So we ask Mr. Brown & Mr. Anonymous, would you prefer that Neil not make releases of his music and stop touring? And if so, what on earth Jake will you review and be able to criticize? The dearth of Neil Young music probably.

30 Comments:

I'd be surprised if a number of fans don't agree with Glorious Noise on this one. Buying a concert recording only to be sold the missing songs piecemeal 3 years later is a questionable move. Considering the complete show has been up on Wolfgang's Vault in pristine quality for a few years, I don't buy the excuse that Neil's archivists simply couldn't find a usable tape copy until now.

Jake, if you don't like it, don't buy it. And if you're soooooo terribly upset that ***YOU*** bought the CD or DVD version of the box set (that's right - YOU - Neil Young did not reach into your pocket, steal your wallet, go to the store and buy it for you...), well then you have ONLY YOURSELF to blame.

I mean, the horror! Offering a single for 99 cents that was previously only available to people wealthy enough to purchase a 300 dollar box set??!! I can't believe it!! Highway frickin' ROBBERY!!! How DARE Neil make that song available to people not fortunate enough to shell out a lot of money??

On that note, shouldn't Jake be happy to get to hear this track? And just how else does he expect it to be available online? In what format? Does he expect Neil to send him a free DVD single every time he makes something available, in a hand-addressed brown package with a note of apology from Neil for, obviously, mugging Jake and leaving him with this horrible boxed set that doesn't magically generate new free music every month?

I'm sure Mr. Brown there can do no wrong at all, and obviously has such wonderful, perfect intentions, and is so pure of heart, that he can see right through rotten ol' Neil, who obviously just wants to steal everyone's money, the slavering, greed-soused old capitalist dog!!

Get over yourself, Jake!

There, that's my anti-anti-neil-snob rant of the month.

Thank you, Mr. Thrasher, and please keep up the great work here exposing moronic opinions for what they are! :^D

Matthew, you're quite passionate and dramatic in your defense, but don't be so quick to label an opinion as moronic. Jake Brown's perfectly fine in taking issue with tracks being omitted from official releases with the objective to either entice fans to purchase the top-tier BR Archives set or, as in this case, to $ell them the missing pieces at a later date.

Is it a greedy move? That's debatable. But what he's revealing is that it's a marketing ploy at its core. A slightly irritating, slightly dishonest marketing ploy. If you can't see it, well, that's your problem.

I don't think the exclusion of Cinnamon Girl from the Fillmore CD was driven by greed or any ill-motive. It was just another odd and seemingly inexplicable decision from a Neil Camp that has lost its way. Neil is doing a lot of things these days that don't make much sense, but there is nobody surrounding him to tell him the truth.

In any event, who really cares about another version of CG. The question is -- does Neil still have any new song treasures left in his creative archives.

Neil didn't like any of the versions of Cinnamon Girl he had recorded.

If he had one, I suspect he would have released it on Archives V1. I mean, it's the original lineup of Crazy Horse.

Then we all complained about, he relented and released it (with the qualifier he didn't think it was an optimal version, but he heard our complaints) not just as a download for Blu-Ray, but as an MP3 download for those who didn't have Blu-Ray.

- The concert at Wolfgang's Vault is a complete set, but it is a) HARDLY pristine being that is is a highly compressed streaming audio version (I'm sure the mp3 will put the audio quality to shame), and b) not the same tracks as the official release of the Fillmore East disc. I know that DBTR is the same recording as the WV stream, but I also know that not all of the tracks on the disc were taken from that set (at most one or two others were, not sure about Cinnamon Girl).

- And I'll simultaneously play the elitist here. As an owner of the BD version of the Archives (and of course the HD audio version of this Cinnamon Girl cut), I find it a bit annoying when the BD-Live tracks, that I consider something that my premium price went towards, become available to those who can get it for a buck for their iPod. Now, I know Neil considers mp3s to basically be free advertising, so any money made is gravy, and he's not selling a DVD single with the 24/96 version or anything like that, but I still now count this as one less BD-Live "exclusive" built into the BD price.

I hope everyone who buys it on iTunes enjoys it though. It may not be perfect, but it rocks pretty hard.

This isn't anything but a single song; how many copies do most of us have already? Pathetic.

All the problems on this planet and y'all rant about this!?!

Anyone who bought the dvd set early with the promo disc, can in time, DL every BD extra, when you upgrade. I personally look forward to it. There: that's your 'elitism' from Neil. Seems extraordinarily fair.

As for the poster you wanted exclusive material just because he purchased BD, well, that is the elite statement.

GimmeeGimmeeGimmeeGimmee... what a bunch or brats.

Bring it on AG; one day, I'll have access. Maybe I'll purchase; perhaps I won't. But I won't be bitching about it.

Live at the Fillmore East (March 6 & 7 1970) is a great Neil Young album. Get the vinyl version and listen to "Cowgirl in the Sand". You will never complain about missing songs, mp3's, BD-live downloads or whatever NY does again. Music simply doesn't get any better. Neil + Danny with an amazing piano by the great Jack Nitzsche. Such a wonderful recording of a fine moment in live music history.

“Neil is doing a lot of things these days that don't make much sense, but there is nobody surrounding him to tell him the truth.”

What does this mean? Are you referring to the people who told him that it would be a good idea to go on an extended tour from the Fall of 2007 playing intimate theaters in the U.S. all the way through a big summer 2009 in Europe? Or the people who told him that this is the year to finally release the Archives, Vol. 1? And that this is the year to release a live album of the Harvest Moon tour? Shame on those people.

Can anyone imagine the commentary out there if Thrasher’s Wheat existed during the 80s? Even during the Rust tour in 1978? NO doubt a lot of people would have called the Jawas silly & the set a joke, etc.

When has he done anything conventionally? If you don’t like something Neil is doing don’t blame him or his “camp”…blame his muse. He follows that thing everywhere and at any cost.

This is a question, not a sincere question, not a complaint -- is there a way for people who bot the BD version to get a 'free' copy of the mp3 of CG? I purchased the set, but haven't been able to get the system set up, so I rely on the mp3 version and would love to add CG to that as part of the deal?

Silver Seed and others - you'll have to pardon my diatribe. I am exaggerating for effect with a certain amount of tongue-in-cheek... and certainly don't mean to insult anyone (except for Jake, of course). We are all entitled to our opinions.

But no, I disagree - this is not a greed-based move. Even if he does want to make a profit on the song, so what?

Are you aware that Neil often employs upwards of 300 people at his ranch, and is currently financing a green-technology project that is meant to contribute to helping save us from Global Warming and Unending Resource Wars?

All that stuff sure costs a heck of a lot of money. So... greed? No. Money comes in, and goes right back out again. We should all be happy to help Neil fund such quite un-greedy enterprises.

Hey Thrasher,(And thanks for the repost on the other thread. It was nice to reach a point where we could have honest discourse without acrimony and the follow-up comments reinforce that feeling. Nice community you've got going here.)

I don't think it's possible for those of us on the outside to understand just how chaotic the music business is these days. When a huge star of the moment like Carrie Underwood only sells a couple hundred thousand copies of her new CD in the first week and then drops 60% in the second week, you can only imagine the economic currents flowing around artists like Neil. He has to have a huge overhead to pay for all the projects and people he supports and there has to be cash flow to keep it rolling and there is simply no economic model out there to predict how the cash is going to flow. So if it appears that he and his record company are throwing everything out there that they possibly can, in any number of formats, the bottom line for me is that we all benefit from the result. Or would you rather wait three or four years between albums?

And, as has been said many times before, if you don't like it, don't buy it.

Hi, I'm the guy who wrote the original post on Glorious Noise. Thanks for the link. I'll try to answer the questions posed directly to me.

Thrasher: "So we ask Mr. Brown & Mr. Anonymous, would you prefer that Neil not make releases of his music and stop touring?"

No. Not at all. I love Neil and have purchased almost everything he's ever released, often in multiple formats. I've seen him in concert several times and have always loved it. While I opted not pick up Fork in the Road based on the songs in the videos Neil released, I sincerely hope he continues to tour and release new music. However, I don't think he's the best person to oversee the release of his archives. I think it should be left up to someone who could be a little more objective and less...weird (example: not wanting to release the "best" version of "Flying on the Ground" because it's "too real" or whatever his goofy excuse was that Jimmy McDonough recounted in Shakey). Someone like Joel Bernstein.

I love Neil, and I love his music.

Matthew Lintzenich: "Jake, if you don't like it, don't buy it. And if you're soooooo terribly upset that ***YOU*** bought the CD or DVD version of the box set (that's right - YOU - Neil Young did not reach into your pocket, steal your wallet, go to the store and buy it for you...), well then you have ONLY YOURSELF to blame."

I acknowledged this in my original post (we got what we bought, caveat emptor). I'm not at all upset I bought the CD version of the box set for $69.49. That still seems like a great deal despite the fact that it contained two discs I already owned. In fact, the general release of "exclusive" BD-Live content makes me extremely relieved I didn't shell out the hundreds it would've cost me to buy the box, a Blu-ray player, etc. I'm far more upset that my CD box doesn't include "The Losing End" and "Out on the Weekend" than I am about the Fillmore "Cinnamon Girl." Overall, I love my CD version of the box. I imagine that someday I will upgrade my home stereo system to higher fidelity, and when I do, the Archives box will probably be my next purchase. Until then, I have the music.

Matthew Lintzenich: "On that note, shouldn't Jake be happy to get to hear this track? And just how else does he expect it to be available online?"

As others have pointed out, Wolfgang's Vault has been streaming its recording of this song. And I was extremely happy to get to hear it back in June when I first discovered it there. I posted something to Glorious Noise immediately after: "I gave Neil the benefit of the doubt, assuming that a quality recording of that song maybe didn't exist. Or maybe Danny Whitten dropped his guitar in the middle, or something. But no." It sounds awesome.

The Silver Seed summed up my feelings far more eloquently than I did. The undeniable fact of the matter is that Neil omitted tracks from the original releases (and I realize that in this case it was audio quality issues that nixed it). We don't know whether or not it was his objective to "entice fans to purchase the top-tier BR Archives set" or to "sell them the missing pieces at a later date." But that's the kind of action that makes some people think he's being shady.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not thinking Neil's out there trying to figure out ways he can get another 68 cents from me. After all, the Archives only sold 5,000 copies in the first week. That's how many of us hardcore Rusties there are. If each of us buys a digital copy of the Fillmore "Cinnamon Girl," Neil's label miight earn $3,500. Not sure what Neil's royalty rate is, but I'm guessing that the money is not his motivator here.

But it's still annoying that the iTunes version is priced at the premium rate of $1.29. iTunes has three pricing tiers now. Neil could've put this up there for 99 cents (or even 69 cents if he was feeling really generous). It's moves like this that just SEEM greedy. To reiterate, I'm not suggesting that his motives are to squeeze every penny out of his fans -- because there's barely any money in it for him -- but stuff like this just has the appearance of money grubbing. That's all I'm saying. It just doesn't look cool.

Ideally, it would've been cool if he could've offered a free CD-quality download for people who have purchased either the box or the original Fillmore disc. Whatever, though. It's his deal. And he's made it abundantly clear that when it comes to his archives, his decisions are far from rational.

Good old Skakey. You gotta love him. Keep on rockin'.

Archives Guy: "Read the Post-Informer article on your BD-Live download for the straight scoop on this track."

Is there a way for those of us who just purchased the MP3 from Amazon or AAC from iTunes to get the scoop?

what drives me crazy is the release of all this material ive all ready heard. i dont mean to sound like an impatient cry baby but come on.....cinamon girl. I've only heard like 35 different live versions of that.....all though it is danny whitten material. and whats with harvest moon live. i was so sure the next nya live release was gonna be either tongihts the night material or a remasterd version of the infamous '74 bottom line show.

He originally didn't want to release On The Beach on CD cause he didn't want it to be widespread. But enough fans urged him to so he did.

Probably the same thing here. He didn't like the sound quality of this great song, and preferred that only the ones that met his standards be on the album. Then probably enough of us bitched so that he gave up and let us have it.

And even if he did have a scheme on how to rob his fans of a buck, so the fuck what. He's a chill great fucking dude, and making some extra money is def not a crime.

I believe that there was no scheme. Shit probably just played out this way.

Btw imagine if there was a vid for the Cowgirl in the Sand track. I would jizz my fucking pants watching that.